Owls from Malfoy Manor
by eleigh17
Summary: A year after the end of the war, Harry begins an unexpected correspondence with the mother of his one-time enemy. Through their letters, Harry and Narcissa develop an unlikely friendship that redefines the Malfoys' place in the new wizarding society and brings Harry closer to someone he never thought he'd befriend. Drarry with some Harry/Ginny thrown in there. EWE.
1. The First Letter

_Chapter 1: The First Letter_

 _Mrs. Malfoy,_

 _I hope you've been well since the trials. I am sorry that your husband was sent to Azkaban – I hope you understand that there was nothing I could do for him, though I wish I could have, out of thanks for you. I realize that it has been nearly a year that your actions have gone un-thanked, and for that, I apologize. I'm writing to remedy that. I cannot express how grateful I am for what you did for me in the woods that day. It is because of your choices that I was able to survive the war and defeat Voldemort, and for that both I, and our entire world, owe you our thanks._

 _Please let me know if there is anything that I can do for you or your family in the future._

 _My best wishes,_

 _Harry Potter_

 _Dear Mister Potter,_

 _I thank you for your letter. My son and I have been readjusting to the Manor without my husband since the trials, but you have no need to apologize. Lucius deserves to be in Azkaban, and I believe he knows it – it was he who brought He Who Must Not Be Named into our lives and our home, and it is because of him that we almost lost our only son. Nothing you could have said would have changed his guilt, and I would not have wanted it to. My son and I, however, owe our freedom to your testimony, and for that, I thank you sincerely._

 _Draco has also informed me that I owe you his life as well, for risking your own neck to save his in the FiendFyre. Any feeling of obligation towards my family and myself should be dissolved by this selfless and courageous action. We will forever be in debt to you. You are a true Gryffindor._

 _My greatest thanks to you, Mr. Potter._

 _Narcissa Malfoy_

Harry was surprised by the sincerity and honesty in Narcissa's response. He hadn't actually expected a response at all, let alone one so transparent about her feelings towards him, and her actions during the war. In retrospect, he wasn't sure why he responded to the letter. He could have left it there and moved on with a mutual respect and understanding between himself and Narcissa Malfoy. Maybe it was out of some continued oblication, but Harry believed it was something deeper. He continued their correspondence.

 _Mrs. Malfoy,_

 _I want you to know that going back for Draco was the only option that crossed my mind. It was not meant as a heroic action – only as the right thing to do. I hope that he's also adjusting to the new wizarding world. How are you both dealing with the changes? I know that the reparations your family paid to the Ministry were meant to alter your lifestyle. It must be quite the adjustment._

 _I am sorry to hear about the trouble that Mr. Malfoy brought to you and Draco. It is unfortunate that one person's decisions can change the course of an entire family, although I am very familiar with the havoc that one person's choices can cause. I hope that you will be able to move forward from Mr. Malfoy's choices with the wizarding community as we rebuild and restructure. I haven't seen you around the Reconstruction at Hogwarts or the Ministry, however your presence there, helping and showing support, would do wonders for the face of the reconstruction efforts, as well as for the face of the Malfoy family. I would consider it a personal favor if you and Draco would be willing to lend a hand._

 _Hope to see you soon._

 _Harry_

Narcissa shook her head at the latest letter from the Potter boy. She had felt that she owed him a certain amount of candor after everything he went through because of the crazed leader Lucius had chosen to follow. But she hadn't expected another reply, and now it seemed he'd taken a special interest in her and her son. Writing to him could have its advantages. An association with Harry Potter would undoubtedly help to raise the Malfoy name from the mud that Lucius had left it in.

It was more than that, though. She could feel the boy's isolation in his words – she could feel a loneliness that mirrored her own. The war had ended and the fear had ebbed, leaving her as empty and drained as the manor house where she stayed. Harry's was an isolation that Narcissa could not help but feel partially responsible for, as it had been _her_ people that had killed his family, _her_ ideals that had led to the war of which he was forced to be the hero.

Sighing, she sat down at her carved oak desk and carefully penned a reply.

 _Dear Mr. Potter,_

 _Thank you, once again, for you letter and for your concern for Draco and myself. In all honesty, we are adjusting to the seclusion that comes from who we were during the war. We both regret the things that we were made to do. Our isolation is to be expected, and we do not wish to disrupt the reformation of our society with our presence. It is because of this and candidly, perhaps out of fear, that I have hesitated to join the reconstruction efforts. However, if you are certain that I will not step on any toes or create a disturbance with my presence, I wish to do all that I can to repair the damage that occurred during the war._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Narcissa Malfoy_

 _Mrs. Malfoy,_

 _I understand your isolation better than you might imagine. I spent the first eleven years of my life alone, and I thought that after finding friends at Hogwarts, I would never feel so isolated again. But the aftermath of this war has pulled my closest friends and I in all different directions. I find myself surrounded instead by people that don't know me, and for that, I have never felt so alone. Who knew being a "war hero" was so insulating?_

 _My apologies if I've overshared, ma'am. Your letters have been so forthright that I wish to return your honesty with my own. Have I ever been so honest with anyone? And somehow, I find it easier to write to you than to speak to those that are constantly around me. Perhaps because I know you'll understand._

 _Perhaps if you join the reconstruction, though, we can help one another out of our respective solitudes. As I mentioned, and I am sure you're aware, your presence in the reconstruction efforts would benefit your family image greatly. While some may be uncomfortable, I think it vital to our efforts to have such a well-known pureblood family's name in support of the changes the Ministry is making. You may help to bring some of the others around. I hope to see you at Hogwarts in the very near future._

 _And please, call me Harry._

 _Best,_

 _Harry_

Harry's letters to Narcissa sometimes took him hours to compose. He worked harder on them than he ever had on his Hogwarts schoolwork, trying to get the right mix of formality and familiarity into his sentences. These letters seemed more important than his schoolwork ever had.

Whenever he read them over, he felt detached, as though Hermione, rather than Harry himself, had written the words. But they were his words, his thoughts on the paper in front of him, holding emotions Harry didn't realize he felt until they were on the page before his eyes. Writing to Mrs. Malfoy was a bit like having a Pensieve, he thought. The thoughts were no longer trapped in his mind, but there before him where they finally made sense.

To Narcissa, he could write things that he would never be able to say to Mrs. Weasley, in spite of the fact that Molly was more a mother to him than anyone else had ever been. He told Mrs. Malfoy things that he'd never even brought up with Ginny, despite his love for his girlfriend. Somehow, he knew that Narcissa would not judge him, and that regardless of their sides during the war, their circumstances gave them more in common than he had with his friends right now.

Ron was busy basking in the limelight of being a war hero. Harry couldn't blame him – after so many years of being the youngest brother, best friend to the Boy Who Lived, Ron deserved some recognition. He was out with a different girl every night and spending far more time at the pub than Harry wanted to. He was coping with the aftermath of the war in his own way – in a bottle, in the beds of strangers, in the flashes of cameras. Harry didn't blame his best friend, but he couldn't relate.

Hermione spent every waking moment at the Ministry. If Harry had thought her busy during her Hogwarts years, it was nothing in comparison to the crazed woman she had become in the last year. He'd stopped trying to make plans with her of late, after they were cancelled at the last minute, time and time again. He couldn't hold it against her. He knew that she had taken Fred's death hard – they had just begun to see each other before the trio left on their extended camping trip. Keeping busy was her coping mechanism, and Harry would be there when she ran out of laws to rewrite and trials to attend.

He had Ginny, of course, but she'd had to deal with so much in the last year. Mrs. Weasley was by no means a weak woman, but she had needed the support of her youngest child more than ever, since Fred's death. And Ginny seemed to be the only one George would open up to since he lost his twin. Harry could not fault any of them. He too had taken their losses hard, and he understood that the Weasley family needed to hold each other together through the aftershocks of the war. They were there for him too, but their methods were not his.

So he'd found his own coping mechanism, and apparently that was writing. Writing letters to Narcissa Malfoy.


	2. The Invitation

_Chapter 2: The Invitation_

 _Dear Harry,_

 _I must thank you for coming to my defense today at Hogwarts. While I expected disdain at my presence, I did not expect so many to be so forthright about it. Though I know your support of my attendance may not reflect well on you in the eyes of those around you, please know that I appreciate it more than there are words to express._

 _I will be back at Hogwarts frequently to assist from now on – it seems you need all the help you can get, and I wish to help rebuild the world I had my part in destroying. I suppose that the best way to silence the contempt for my presence and change our community's opinion of me and my family is to show with my actions that I regret all that happened, and that I will do what it takes to repair our world. I hope that you know this to be true. It is because of you that I have this opportunity at all._

 _My very best,_

 _Narcissa_

Harry sighed. Having Narcissa at Hogwarts had been more of a nuisance than a help today. He'd spent so much time telling people off for their snide comments, telling them to get back to work and stop the gossiping, that he hadn't actually accomplished any of the reconstruction work he'd planned for the day. With all the times they'd been stopped, he'd hardly had the time to show her around and explain what they were doing to different sections of the castle.

"It will get better, you know," Ginny told him from the dresser where she stood brushing her hair and removing her jewelry. He hadn't even said anything, but it seemed that his expression had given his thoughts away to his beautiful girlfriend. It was one of the few days since getting back from training with the Holyhead Harpies that she'd felt Molly was in a good enough state to spend the night at Harry's flat above the Hog's Head.

"I know, Gin. And she needs this as much as we do, but it's frustrating anyway," he replied. A part of him understood how hard it must be for some to accept that the Malfoys – Draco and Narcissa at least – had changed before their side had lost the war. But when they were still behind in the reconstruction plans a year after the war, he needed every wand he could get and he needed them focused on rebuilding Hogwarts. Not only that, but his world needed to understand the importance of unwavering unity between purebloods and muggleborns alike if they were going to move past this era of war and hatred. Narcissa's willingness to be the first of the pureblood families to lend herself to this idea made her help invaluable. _If only there was a way to convince everyone else of that_ , he thought.

As Ginny climbed into bed, though, he pushed all thoughts of the Malfoys, the reconstruction, and everything else away. If he had tonight with this firecracker of a woman, he was going to give her his full attention.

Harry had been spending increasingly more time with Narcissa at Hogwarts over the last couple of weeks. She was surprisingly adept at the restorative and protective charms that needed to be incorporated into every inch of the castle, and Harry found himself teaching her most useful tricks to the rest of the restoration troop. It had upped their efficiency almost immediately, and they were finally moving at a pace that would finish the work on Hogwarts by the Ministry's deadline.

Narcissa was quite creative when it came to finding ways to restore the more inaccessible regions of the castle, and she and Harry were making their way around to these and putting their minds together to fix them. She was also teaching Harry useful new spells and tricks, perhaps not directly relevant to the reconstruction, but helpful nonetheless. Some were spells of her own invention, which he gathered she had created during all those years of running and maintaining Malfoy Manor. She seemed happy to have someone to share her spells with, as if in all her life, nobody had shown this much interest in her magic. Harry, for his part, didn't mind at all – he wondered if this was the type of thing his mother would have taught him if she hadn't died.

Harry shook himself to pay more attention to the new spell Narcissa was teaching him. She performed and created some brilliant magic. If he hadn't known it before, Harry did now – Narcissa Malfoy was a formidable witch. He was glad to have her on his side.

As they made their way around the castle, applying protective enchantments and repairing the crumbling masonry, Harry was pleased to find that, now that Lucius wasn't around to coerce her into hating Harry, she was friendly and enjoyable to be around. Not only was she full of spell and ideas about the reconstruction, but she was full of stories. Stories about her childhood that she seemed to relish telling, as though they'd been sitting dusty for years and were thrilling to revisit. Stories that sometimes included Sirius.

"I remember once when we were young – before he was at Hogwarts and he was disowned. He must have been nine or ten at the time – " she mused as they walked the halls, "one morning, during the Christmas holidays, after my shower, my hair was purple. All of it, a nice bright violet. You can imagine my parents were not thrilled that their fairest daughter had done such a thing. Well of course, I hadn't – Sirius told me years later that he'd snuck some kind of purple powder dye into my shampoo while he was visiting at Christmas. But I kept it that way through the rest of my third year. My parents hated it but I was a stubborn child, much like you." She was smiling at the memory, and at Harry, a familiar twinkle in her eye. As Harry grinned back, picturing this formidable, refined woman with purple hair, he finally saw her resemblance to Sirius.

 _Dear Mrs. Malfoy,_

 _Thank you for your persistence in choosing to work on the reconstruction for the past few weeks. I know that this has probably been a difficult transition for you, but your grace in the face of the way people have treated you is inspiring. It is a skill I could use to learn._

 _But, I admit, that is not the reason I am writing. I think that you know the Weasley family, don't you? Well, Mrs. Weasley – Molly – asked me to invite you to dinner at the Burrow this weekend. She has family dinners at seven in the evening on Saturdays, and I think she wants the chance to see for herself that you've changed. I hope you don't mind – the Weasleys are the closest thing to family that I have and they are a bit protective. But I do think that you and Mrs. Weasley could get along quite well if you give each other the chance._

 _Please let me know if you can make it to dinner. Draco is invited as well._

 _Best,_

 _Harry_

Narcissa Malfoy did not get nervous about dinner parties. From the time she was old enough to hold a conversation, her parents brought her to every ball, dinner, and party that they were invited to. Dinner parties were at worst a routine inconvenience; nothing to get worked up over. Growing up, there were lessons on etiquette, polite conversation, and anything else her parents felt would help her to find a suitable pureblood husband. Dinner parties were just a part of that, and then of keeping that husband happy. She could feign interest in boring Ministry professions, and hold conversations about the most obscure topics better than anyone else she knew. She knew which fork to use, and the proper course organization to choose for a dinner party. She never missed a step of the waltzes at a ball, no matter how her partners struggled to keep up with her. Her parents, her husband, her entire life had groomed her to become the perfect pureblood wife, mother, hostess, guest.

But Narcissa Malfoy was nervous nonetheless. She was fairly certain that there would be no courses, no different silverware to use, no overly polite conversation at the Burrow. Not with Molly's, husband, their seven children, and their friends, spouses, pets. It was the type of dinner party that Narcissa had never experienced before – even the Black and Malfoy family dinners had been conducted with a grace and decorum that she was fairly certain she shouldn't expect from the Weasley family. They were just such a different type of family than those she'd been raised around. Had she interacted with anyone like them since Hogwarts? She was inclined to think she hadn't – it wouldn't have been appropriate and Lucius would never have allowed such behavior. Not that she'd ever wanted to before now.

But being a pariah from her own world and hated in theirs was lonely. And Harry, dear boy that he was, honestly seemed to believe that they would accept her with open arms. After everything that she'd done – would they really? Narcissa Malfoy was nervous because for the first time in her life, her blood status, her money, her _name_ didn't guarantee that the people she'd be dining with would actually like her.

She gritted her teeth as she changed from the clothes she'd worn to Hogwarts that day into something she hoped was casual enough for a dinner with the Weasleys. She felt uncomfortably like she was getting ready to go on a first date. Maybe this wasn't the best idea after all. Perhaps it would be better to stay home where nobody would be offended by her presence.

 _But think of Harry, the poor boy,_ she thought. _He deserves to have more people looking out for him, after everything he's been through. He cares about you and he asked you to come meet the rest of his family. So you will go. It is the right thing to do and it is the motherly thing to do. His family wants the reassurance that you actually care about him, and you know you want the same reassurance from them._

Narcissa was slightly startled by her own thoughts – sometime over the past few weeks of working with him, she had become quite attached to The Boy Who Lived. He had so much to learn still, about their world. He was an orphan, and she had been all but abandoned by her own son since the war. It seemed the perfect thing to help them both heal from everything that had passed.

She sighed and wrapped a shawl around her shoulders. After telling the house elves to make sure Draco ate something, she apparated to the Burrow, blissfully unaware of everything that was in store for her.

 **A/N: Hello, friends. I am so sorry this chapter has taken me so long to get to you. I've had quite a busy few weeks, but I wanted to at least get you something new in this story. I hope you enjoy! Please let me know what you think in the comments - I love hearing what readers have to say!**

 **Enjoy the rest of your week, lovelies.**

 **-E. Leigh**


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